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tv   FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace  FOX News  May 12, 2013 11:00pm-12:01am PDT

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it's just one of the ways constant contact can help you grow your small business. sign up for your free trial today at constantcontact.com/try. >> chris: i'm chris wallace. today, benghazi under the microscope. >> when you said what you said, did you know that this had gone through 12 versions? >> we not offer that information? >> the phrase is let's not put this out because we don't want to be criticize. >> this is an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something that we did not hide. >> chris: amid renewed charges of a coverup calls for a special inquiry. >> we should have a joint committee of the appropriate committees asking what really happened in benghazi? >> chris: we'll talk with two congressmen at the center of the storm. the chair of the house in tell intelligence committee meek
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rogers and top democrat on house armed services adam smith. and then political redemption in south carolina. >> some ke guy came up to me ad said you look a lot like laz lazareth. and our power player of the week. a story of making billions and giving much of it away. all right now on "fox news sunday." >> chris: hello again and happy mother's day from fox news in washington. the controversy over the benghazi talking points of the obama administration explained the attack to the american people blew up again this week with new revealations about how the points were written. turns out the original drafts talked about extremists with links to al-qaeda and noted the cia had warned for months about threats in benghazi. but all that was taken out
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before susan rice went on the sunday talk shows. we invited congressmen from two key house panels. mike rogers the republican chair of the intelligence committee and from seattle adam smith the top democrat on the armed services committee. you were on "fox news sunday" september 16 right after susan rice came on the show he and she said it was a spontaneous reaction to a video he that had been hijacked by extremists. from the very beginning you doubted her account. let's watch. >> i have serious questions. it seemed to be a military style coordinated. i'm just suspect that they could come to that conclusion that it was a spontaneous effort given the coordination of it. >> chris: after what you learned this week, the fact of what state department officials were saying during the attack. how often and the talking points were changed, did the obama administration mislead or even lie to the american
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people? >> well, it is -- here is what we know. we know that the in it tell against was accurate leading up to the event and shortly thereafter within 24 hours the committee was notified that in fact it was a terrorist attack and that is what led me to my statements on that following sunday. and we know that there was at least the general consensus at the time going into the 16th was, yes, it was a terrorist attack but they changed the narrative and that is what the investigation needs to focus on. why did they change the narrative? did it have a consequence and those are really important questions to get asked. >> chris: what is your answer to both of those. why did they change the narrative? >> clearly some of the early industrycation is they he didn't want the narrative it was a terrorist attack on their watch. clearly that is what it appears to be. again, that is that a thorough investigationhould determine and did the culture of that not wanting to be what it was actually contribute to the lowering of the security
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standards and other things. that is an important question he that the investigations of all of the committees need to find the answer to. >> chris: congressman smith you contradicted the administration talking points even before susan rice went out on september 16. on september 14 here is what you said. mobs don't come in and attack guns blazing. i think there was a growing consensus it was preplanned. after the revealations did the obama administration mislead the american people? >> i really don't think so. i think when you look at what was said in totality in that week they didn't reach conclusions the weigh you just presented that was that be the sunday afterwards that the administration said here is what happened and here is our conclusion. i mean look the day after the attack the president called it a terrorist attack. susan rice in those interviews on sunday described violent extremist elements who took over the attack. i really think this has just become a very, very
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partisan-focused scandal focused attack by the republicans investigating this. instead of trying to figure out exactly what happened and the most interesting question to me is who are these violent extremist elements. i know mike has done a ton of work on this on the intel committee as al-qaeda has metastasized beyond pakistan and yemen. we don't have information that we need to about which threatened us. i think that led to benghazi as much as anything. the president never said no terrorism and who al-qaeda. there was a dispute about how soon to leap to specific conclusions that now is being made into watergate and iran contra. i think the desire of the republicans to create a scandal here has undermined any ability to have a credible look at what actually happened. >> chris: let me push back on you on several of those points. we he now know -- i'm not surprised but go ahead. >> chris: that is what i'm here for, sir. i'm he not a potted plant.
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i'm here to ask some questions. we now know that there were 11 different versions of the talking points. 11 different versions. >> 12. >> chris: may i please go ahead. in the 24 hours before ambassador rice went on the sunday talk shows a dozen versions in all. we he now know that victoria newland the spokesperson for the state department demanded all references to al-qaeda links and earlier warnings for months by the cia be deleted. here is what the white house spokesman jay carney told the media, told the country last november. >> the white house and state department made clear that the single adjustment that was made of those talking points by either of these two institutions were changing the word consulate to diplomatic facility because consulate was inaccurate. >> chris: that is not the truth. that wasn't the only change that the white house and state department made. >> well, look, i mean there
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were unquestionably a dispute as you said in the opening between the cia and state department on exactly what to put into this statement. who changed what when the dispute is clear. the dispute was how soon to leap to conclusion about specific groups being involved in this. >> chris: simple question, if i may, sir,, simple question. was jay carthy telling the truth on november when said the state department and white house made one stylistic change? was that the truth or not? >> i don't know who specifically jay carney was referring to. >> chris: he said the white house and state department. seems pretty self-evident. >> i don't know which person he was talking to. clearly there were more changes made than his statement made. what jay carney knew about who made those at that particular moment. again, we are talking about talking points. there was no question this was a terrorist attack. they didn't dehe nye it. i would much -- they didn't deny it. i would rather get into investigation of the groups that threatened the u.s. and
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figure out who they are and how we can stop them instead of debating how you one memo was put together in the immediated days after the attack. >> chris: let's pick up on that. congressman rogers the fact is 8 plus months later not a sing isle person brought to justice not a sing isle person brought to justice for the benghazi attack. has the administration done everything it could and does the fact that the people have gone free play a role in the fact that we are no you seeing militias running wild and u.s. personnel pulled out of libya? >> i'm not happy with the progress of the investigation. we he have a serious problem. the more time that grew between the actual event and bringing those who were responsible to justice causes us national security trouble overseas. one of the 9/11 commission findings was that in fact because we did not react to the uss cole bombing that emboldened al-qaeda which they believe was a contributing
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factor leading to the 9/11 event. they believe that they had cover to could what they needed to do. when you look at trouble in the al-qaeda across northern africa including libya the trouble is growing, not getting smaller and we are seeing a more regional effort for these folks to move around. the fact that we haven't taken that step i think is critically important and it is a problem, a critically important problem that we he need to solve. >> chris: i want to get to the point that this is all politics. we learned this week that former vice president cheney visited with house republicans and suggested, recommended that hillary clinton be subpoenaed to testify again and two conservative groups came up this week, went p with attack ads linking clinton to benghazi. let's look. >> secretary of state hillary clinton is briefed at 2:00 a.m. by the ambassador's deputy that it was in fact terrorism. >> i briefed her on developments. >> yesterday two days later secretary clinton and others
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blamed protest iters and -- >> an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. >> chris: that sure makes it look political. >> people will take advantage of every situation and make it political. i don't think you can sea about the committee investigation. i clearly have been a part of this investigation sense the beginning. i doubt any one can say we have been partisan or political in this. i do believe we he have to have a fact-based investigation and i think that is what we are doing. as a matter of fact, the people who testified these are serious 20 year veterans at least in one case of the state department who felt so strongly they wanted to come out and testify. i will tell you we have had people come forward because of the testimony and say we would also like to talk. enentima little bit entim dated but we -- intimidated by this. we have information we think is valuable. >> chris: new whistle blowers. >> my committee has been
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contacted and i think other committees have as well. >> chris: gentlemen, i want to turn to syria. congressman rogers now reports of the assad regime is beginning to turn the tide and gaining ground in the civil war in syria. and there was a terrible car bomb attack, two bombs that went off yesterday in the border between syria and turkey that killed more than 40 people. is assad now winning? >> i can't say -- i can't say for sure he is winning. i tell you what is happening is iran has gone into full proxy mode in syria. they believe they have a lot to lose. now, that we see regular hezbollah units some in even form standing aside of the assad forces in fighting has bolstered the regime's capability to continue to fight. what you are seeing is a drawing in of a regional conflict. this is dangerous and it is deteriorating rapidly. the refugee he problems,
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turkey, lebanon, jordan having a problem. now, is the time for u.s. leadership on the particular issue you before the problem escalates. >> chris: i want to pick up with you on that congressman smith because you are still not sure whether or not the u.s. needs to get involved militarily. does that mean that we stand by and watch the slaughter ten and watch the violence spread to surrounding countries like turkey and jordan? >> your questions implies there is some specific military action. i'm weed open to it. if mike has one that will make the situation better. i looked at the options with the way the civil war is going at how fractured the opposition is and how al-qaeda is a a huge part of that opposition and not that i'm not sure. right now, my position is if we were to go in there and try to arm rebel groups it would make the situation worse and there would be an enormous risk of us getting dragged into a war that we don't know the first thing about how it would come out and second that we would wind up
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arming groups and individuals that would wind up threatening us. this is a terrible humanitarian crisis, i agree with that. what has been absent from a lot o the ground of the criticism is what is the specific u.s. military plan that makes this better? >> chris: quickly because i want to get to the irs. congressman rogers briefly. >> nobody is calling for military action in syria. who one. >> what are key calling for? >> there are great options and you know those. this is not something we should be arguing about. the arab league partners lost confidence in the united states. they are asking us not to be on the ground. they don't want our groups on the ground. they hee need help coordinatine efforts. the problem is they are getting to places we don't want them to go. >> i'm sorry i just got to sea. >> chris: real quick. >> the administration is doing that and coordinating with the arab league. you and i met with king abdull
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la and others they are working with the whose and they are involved not the discussion. >> chris: we he could continue this conversation but i want to get both of you on the record about the irs. dramatic developments this week. only a limited time. the irs admits that it targeted tea party, other conservative patriot groups that had that in their name for extra scrutiny and now turns out today new reports that some officials within the irs knew about this as early as 2011, not 2012 and then the irs commissioner flatly denied it in the spring of 2012. congressman smith, you first. your reaction? >> really the first i'm hearing of it and as with many of these things i will not leap to conclusions based on initial reports. we need to see exactly what happened before we can leap to conclusions and start accusing people of thens. definitely worth looking into but you right now the information is far too preliminary to reach any conclusions.
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>> chris: congressman rogers? >> the conclusion the irs came to is they had individuals engaged in discrimination of poe let cal groups. i don't care if you are a contract, liberal, democrat or republican this should send a chill up your spine. something that we cannot let stand. it needs to have a full investigation. i don't know where it stops or who is involved. whoever is involved through a fact-based investigation and it has to be external. clearly shown that they can't do it themselves. and i think congress needs to have that oversight. and i also want to invite adam my good friend by the way down to the intelligence space so that we can talk about the real capabilities we have that does not include military action that our arab league partners are asking for in syria and we have not been able to deliver. i think we can all get to this. >> chris: can we come with the fox news cameras? >> neither adam nor i look good in the orange jump suits with the numbers on the back. >> chris: thank you for coming in today. a lot of news today.
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thank you? thanks for the chance. >> thanks, adam. >> chris: up next, former north carolina governor mark sanford came a long way from his apology over a sex scandal many predicted would sink his poe lepolitical future. >> i let her down and i would ask her forgiveness. >> seems south carolina voters are ther to giving kind. mark sanford on his political comeback, next.
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i am one imperfect man saved by god's grace but one who has a conviction of the important of doing something about spending in washington,
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d.c. >> chris: mark sanford thanking voters tuesday night for sending him to congress after an extramarital affair with all of the twists of a tv soap opera. joining is now from seabrook, south carolina, to tack about the comeback is congressman elect former governor mark sanford. i guess i will call you governor because that is what i'm used to. welcome back to "fox news sunday," sir. >> pleasure to be with you. >> chris: you have never been a stand in line politician. you weren't when you were in congress in the '90s and you weren't during your 8 years as governor. how do you intend to make your mark as a new congressman here in washington? >> well, i mean i think the same way that i tried to fashion the things when i was in congress before or when i was in the eight years of the governorship which is to stand p for ideas that i believe in and ideas that i talked about in this campaign or ones passed and ideas that i think are ultimately relevant to where people are coming from when they think about pocketbooks or
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wallet issues. >> chris: the house company campaign committee stopped backing you in the the middle of the campaign when there were reports you violated your divorce agreement by going toor ex-wife's home and watching the super bowl with your son. they dropped you as a candidate then which raised the question now that you you are back and won without their help what is your relationship going to be with the house republican leadership? part of the team or more of an independent? >> well, i'm a republican who always had an independent streak that would be the best way to define it. all that is in my past is past and i look forward to working with the entire republican team. i think that you look at the competition of power in washington, d.c. right now with the senate and the ekimov ittive branch in the congress and congress is a holdout and i would very much look forward to working with republicans as they try to advance conservative ideals that i think are important and reflective of where taxpayers are coming from' cross the country he. >> chris: let's talk about conservative ideas and taxpayer
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ideas because your big issue in the house as governor has always been government spending. in fact, in one memorable scene you once brought two pigs named pork and barrel to the house floor. the statehouse floor in columbia to protest pork barrel spending. question, do you you come with any new ideas or it particular ideas about how to is shrink the size of the federal government? >> one, that it is important and a real conviction on that front. milton friedman once said the the mat measure of government is what it spends bass you have borrowing and taxes and a whole host of things that follow but that spending is what begins the problem that so many conservatives struggle with. frankly, so many taxpayers struggle with. i think that, you know, as i begin to get up in washington and begin to dig into the numbers as i did back when i was governor and looking at the budget numbers in south
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carolina that led to the pigs in that case it was more than $100 million unconstitutional deficit. months of deliberation on it and when the deliberation didn't work we finally resorted to something else to capture people's attention and it worked because we ultimately closed off that. what i'm going to do is in essence look under the hood at a whole host of things. i think you got to deal with the big rocks in washington, d.c. certainly entitlements. medicare and medicaid and social security but there is a lot of inefficiency out there in all areas of government that people are with warrant concerned about and i will be focusing there as well. i would also se say this. another part of shrinking the deficit is not just tied to cutting government spending. you look at the number of unemployed in the country and that is a real drag onotomy. as the economy grows that is another part of shrinking that monster, if you will. >> chris: governor, let's address your personal scandal. what did you learn interes fro?
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>> you learn ar a lot. i would say that you probably learn more in the valleys of life than you do in the mountain tops. learned whole new you things that i never comprehended before with regard to god's grace and the reflective grace that comes through other humans that you walk with on a daily basis. i learned a lot about judgment and forgiveness. i could go down a litany of different things but i boil it down this way. our minister gave a great sermon a number of months back and his point was do the events of your life refine or define your life. i think in politics people want to take an event and make it definitional to your life. i think that any of these valles or any of these bumps that we hit in the road of life by circumstance or by our own action can be refining points where ultimately you grow as a result of the soul searching that comes in the wake of loss and failure. >> chris: you are now engaged
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to the woman with whom you had the affair maria. she made a brief appearance and we have a picture of it up on the screen at the victory party which raised some eyebrows. question, what did your boys think of that your four boys and have is they accepted her? >> i'm he not going to go into interfamily conversations but i would say it is what it is. and i'm right now in a weekend with one of my boys who has a host of college friends here scattered across this house that i'm sit ising in right now. >> chris: do you have a date for your wedding and will your fiance come to washington to live with you? i feel like i'm the national inquirer here. >> is this fox news or national inquirer. i'm not going to make news on that front tonight or this morning. >> let me ask you another question because people wonder about you. there was some question, you
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know your race attracted unusual attention i think it is fair to say for a special election in one congressional house district and people wonder about you. one of the things is, is it true that late last year, december that you went to your ex-wife jenny and asked her as she had been during your are popolitical career to once agan run your campaign? >> what is true is that i went there to visit with her because one of the first things you had to determine was is whether she was going to run. she at that time was talking about running. i don't think there would have been anything for harmful to the four boys than having a former -- i mean a mom and a dad, still a mom and dad but former husband and wife running against each other. we had a conversation on that and other things. and i think it was important to clear the air on that front and she decided not to run and at that point ultimately after number of ts andxico of other dotting is and conversation
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with our boys decided to go ahead and run. it has been a really, really interesting journey here the last five months not just in the conversation with them but the conversation ultimately with voters across the first congressional district of south carolina about things that they would like to see in washington, d.c. a greater adherences to it taxpayer issues they would leak to see in washington, d.c. and frankly they're concerned about the the direction of country and the piling on of debt and deficit that i think ultimately will impact the very boys that you are alluding to. >> chris: back in 2009 before all this personal stuff, you were exploring the possibility of running for president in 2012. you have been exploring the idea of setting up a national and nationwide organization. so the question is does your political comeback now you end as the congressman from the first congressional district of south carolina? or is there the possibility of higher office? >> what i say, people are beginning to look at that for
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me. a big gulf between them looking at it for me he and saying you ought to do this, you ought to do this and look at this and me doing it. he haven't pulled any trip wire on that front but you you are right a number of people were suggesting those kinds of things. as to my focus, my focus is to be the best congressman i can be for the first congressional district of south carolina. i'm right now here at the family farm which i grew up in in the southern end of the district. my professional life began in the northern end in charleston and this is the traditional low country of south carolina. not a prettier or more wonderful part of the world. nothing against other congressional districts in the country he. and so what i want to do is well represent the people of the first congressional district of south carolina period and i'm going to be very much focused on doing so as i get sworn in come this week on wednesday. >> all right. and briefly, because we are about to run out of time. incidentally if i was the national enquirer you were the
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chamber of commerce for the low country there. what do you think the republican committee needs to start doing to win national elections again? >> i don't think it is any one thing. i think it is, indeed, a whole host of things. i would liken a party to a brand. whether cater pillar or john deere, they produce tractors or bulldozers, one of the things said about great brands or great companies they go back and stick to the knitting when there is difficulty. they don't produce an airplane or boat, they go back to producing a better bulldozer. in regard to the republican brand if you will which is all about conservative philosophy it is important that they go back to the knitting that brought the very existences, brought about the very existences in the first place. i think that you actually have to -- there it has been real brand dissolution as at times
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republicans have been squishy on spending or the mole notion of taxes. -- whole notion of taxes. one of the things that will receive the most support is again a very clear investigation or picture -- clear vision or picture as to what the party is about rather than at times diluted messages or convoluted messages. >> chris: thanks for coming in and talking with us. with a good weekend with your sons and we will look for you in washington next week. >> chris: next, a conservative pac takes aim at former secretary of state hillary clinton. we will ask the sunday panel whether the benghazi investigation is all about national security or politics. the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on all purchases,
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we are concerned about how congress react is factor into what went in the talking points? >> if you look at the development of the talking points the answer to that is no. >> chris: white house spokesman jay carney under fire friday as the benghazi scandal hit the mainstream media with a vengeance. time for the sunday group. bill kristol of the weekly standard. dennis kucinich. kimberly strossel and juan williams. jay carney kept insisting they never changed the benghazi talking points in any substantive way. the white house press corps wasn't buying it. where does this stand right now? >> jay carney's credibility is shot. set spokesman of the president of the united states. is the obama administration
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credibility shot? benghazi is obama's foreign policy. intervene but don't do anything. lead from behind. passivity in and inaction in libya which allowed the activity to build up that led to the attack on 9/11. and the action the night of. and then evade responsibility and deserve the american people and that is not -- and deceive the american people. that is not limited to the one incident in benghazi. >> chris: congressman kucinich, does it bother you that the cia originally wrote about links to al-qaeda and wrote about having warned the state department for months about threats in benghazi and that all of that was taken out and let's put this up on the screen. state department official victoria newland wrote in pushing back against what the cia had written that information could be abused by members of congress to beat up the state department for not paying attention to warnings so why would we want to feed that either. concern. this congressman from the
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transparent administration of barack obama. >> i didn't need those memos to know that it was wrong for us to intervene in lya. this is one liberal democrat who sade the intervention was wrong and what the attack on the consulate brings up, chris, is the failure of the benghazi policy from the beginning. and that is why they had to call it a street demonstration instead of an attack because then on the eve of an election that brought in a whole into you narrative about foreign policy and dealing with terrorism and the consequences that led to four deaths of people who serve the united states. >> chris: do you think the talking points were politically scrubbed? >> of course, the they were. are you kidding? we are in the circumference ofin' election. on the eve of an election everything becomes political. unfortunately, americans die and people who believe in america and put their lives on the line weren't provided with protoes and weren't provided with a response.
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they and their families had to right to make sure they were defend the. we went into benghazi under the assumption somehow there was going to be a massacre in benghazi so we went there to libyan people.ronian people we couldn't go in to protect our own people? i'm offended by this and there ha has to be real answers to the questions raised. >> chris: let's assume that congressman kucinich is right and the talking points were scrubbed to protect hillary clinton and barack obama running for reelection? is that where the scandal ends? there were misjudgments but what evidence is there that the administration did anything wrong either before, during or after the attacks? >> the thing is we don't know. this is what we found out this week that the official record out there on all kinds of things is simply not, correct. okay. apparently the white house was not involved in the talking points. that is not true. apparently hillary clinton is
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just a footnote in all of this. that is not true. supposedly the requests for aid were never denied. we heard this week that is not true. the white house faces an issue here which is where do we get the answers and that is why you are now hearing calls for a bipartisan select committee. the democrats keep claiming this is a partisan exercise. put both sides on it and give them the power of depositions and subpoena and get the e-mails and talk to the witnesses in public and if the white house really claims it has nothing to hide it shouldn't fear such an exercise but that is the only way that you will start getting any answers to this otherwise it will drip, drip, drip on like this week after week. >> chris: juan? >> let me say tore all of the media attention it has deservedly got this week after the gripping testimony we saw from gregory hicks in congress, there is nothing new, there is nothing new in terms of the details that we have seen in the e-mails about what happened
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before -- >> chris: did you knower prior to this week there had been a dozen versions to the e-mail? >> i don't know how many. doesen surprise me. bureaucratic infighting in washington. >> chris: did you know that vectorria nuland said they had been warning for months because i didn't know about that. >> warning what? >> chris: warning about threats. >> that came out in the report which said admiral mullen and ambassador pickering said the security lapses occurred and people at state got fired. >> chris: they didn't say the ci i'm put it in the talking points and the state department wanted it out. >> they sade there was a lack of proper security there and the state had not is responded adequately.m >> the key point is not
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i think the irs would like to apologize for that. it was not intentional. as soon as we found out what
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was going on we took steps to make it better and i don't expect those things to reoccur. >> this is a complete and total abuse of power by bureaucrats and they're distributioning the power that they have -- abusing the power in the irs. it is completely unacceptable. >> chris: an irs official acknowledging it gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax exempt status but a tea party official dismissed the apology as not enough. we are back with the panel. big new developments today in the irs story. and inspector general's report due out it in the next few days will report the following. irs officials knew as early as 2011, not 2012 as previously reported the agency was targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny and singled out groups with tea party or are patriot or 912 project in the name. kim, how big a deal? >> a very big deal not only because of what you just said
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in the inspector general report is going to go against thinks that the irs said. last year we had the commissioner of the irs testify under oath before congress that nobody was being targeted. one thing will be whether or not this ig report states who knew what and when and what actions were taken. that is a very important thing. i also think this is interesting in the bigger context of this is not an isolated insurance debt. we -- incident. we he also had the irs sending out letters to donors to 501 cs you could be subject to retroactive taxation. the irs blamed it on lower level employees. some of these things are adding up and paint fishy pictures. >> chris: the conservative groups started come planing early last year 2012 about the fact that they were getting really intrusive demands for information including information about donors which they are not supposed to have to give to the irs. and but it now turns out that
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the practice was going on at least six, eight, nine months before. as early as june of 2011. as kim points out, last year the then irs commissioner flatly denied it. take a look. >> there is absolutely no targeting. this is the kind of back and forth that happens when people apply for 501 c. >> chris: now, they admit there was targeting. >> some of the statements aren't passing the state face test. you have to look at the irony here, chris. some of the letters some of the words that were used for profiling the political affiliation bill of rights. u.s. constitution. patriots. these are all things that americans celebrate and now they are being it turned into a negative where irs goes after people based on their commitment to those things? look, you know, i'm a liberal democrat. i'm not someone who is celebrated tea party politics
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but we cannot -- this is not tolerable. we cannot have a condition in america where people's politics are the basis for irs attacks. >> chris: do you believe the statements by the mid level manager so far and that is the only thing we he have seen that this was just a bureaucratic foulup by a bunch of people in the tax exempt the organization's' plying for tax exempt status in cincinnati and this didn't go up any higher? >> the tone is set from the top. that is the problem we have is to look at here. the tone is set. we are in a hyper partisan and intensely partisan condition in washington. the polarization is damaging to the country and we are seeing another symptom of it here. >> chris: you think this was political targeting? >> how could it not be. >> chris: the outrage and it is interesting because it crosses the party lien. let me put up a couple of editorials from major american newspapers over the last day. the washington post editorial,
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not a particularly conservative newspaper asked if it was not partisanship was it income pa tense? stupidity on a breathtaking scale. the "wall street journal" declared it as big and bad deal. your reaction? >> still recovering from agreeing with everything dennis kucinich said this morning. >> uh-oh. >> i shouldn't say that. which one of us is that going to hurt more? i don't know. both of the scandals, benghazi and the irs it should not be a partisan reaction. i do not like the conservative republican groups putting ads up about hillary clinton. that is just fund raising by american cross roads and other groups. ridiculous. there is no campaign going on. pull the partisanship back. a genuine outrage what happened in benghazi and what the irs did. there should be bipartisan committees investigating both in congress. i wish the artisan republican groups could o the ground be quiet on both issues for awhile and let's find out what
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happened. >> chris: juan? >> this is a real problem. you cannot politicize and politically intimidate opponents using the irs. for those who have been around this is nixon and going back to johnson and allegations throughout american history. you know, this is the most pernicious kind of tool that could be he used against a political opponent and should not be. let me say i don't think there is any evidence that it goes beyond those low level people thus far. we all have l. have to see what is in the inspector general's report. there are questions to be raised in the era about the groups. you look at them. >> chris: advocacy groups applying for tax exempt status. >> as nonprofits. they are highly poll techized groups. i personally have been attacked by the likes of media matters have. american cross roads. running the ad on hillary clinton. i think by the way that hurts
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idea this is not being simply a politicized attack on the democrats obama and clinton. how are they not a highly political group and why are they suddenly eligible for the tax exemption. much of the tea party efforts stem from direct mail efforts. that could be why they said do you have tea party or patriotic in the title. just comes too close to the nerve of political intimidation and cannot be tolerated. >> chris: one more thing that is striking about this. the irs did not official aannounce this. the president of the united states did not officially apologize. the treasury secretary did not officially apologize. it came out because a mid level manager the person at the irs in charge of reviewing the tax exempt organizations was having a q&a session with a bunch of tax lawyers. they he asked a question and she answered the question. that is how the whole story came out and perhaps not so
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coincidentally came out just days before the treasury inspector general was about to issue a report slamming them on this. itthat is what ties it together. this is just sort of thrown out there and shuffled under the table but the timing is notable. sounds as though from what we have is heard that has been leaked that the iga report is going to be incredibly damning. i think this is really interesting what juan is talking about the groups, though, because the reality is looking forward and i think that this is a really important aspect of this. you have an entire campaign finance community who wants more reforms in the area and what are they talking about? the big proposals pushing for the last year has been we need more oversight and ought to give the irs authority and make them put the donors out. and so this is something that i think can't be tolerated at this point. >> chris: we have to leave it there. thank you all, panel. see you next week. don't forget to check out panel plus where our group picks right up with the discussion on our website fox news sunday
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.com. follow us on twitter @ fox news sunday. up next, our power player of the week. making billions and giving much of it away.
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>> chris: a rhodes scholarship has been one of the achievements students can achieve. now a person is helping students get the honor. >> it's to help the people and give them the shot in life that we would all like to have. >> steve is head of the blackstone group. the world's largest private
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equity firm. according to estimates, he is worth $6.5 billion. but this story isn't how he makes money. it's about how he gives it away. >> 21st century program to develop leaders specifically for the world we live in today and needs in the future. >> last month he was in beijing to announce the scholars program to send 200 students a year to one of top universities. >> china is growing triple the rate. >> he has modeled his program on rhodes scholarships. he wrote a check for $100 million and he is raising $200 million more. >> you can see that a relatively small group of well-trained excellent people taking their place in society can have a very big impact on the future course
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of the world. >> hiring our veterans and military spouses is not just patriotic but it's a smart thing to do. >> chris: he was at white house on a different mission, black phone that employ 730,000 people will hire 50,000 military veterans over the next five years. >> i think it is good business, but it's also an essential part for who we as americans. >> he is sharply skrifd. >> if we got things in line in the right way and have a more positive spin. my view has always been we have another one and a half to 2 percent g.d.p. it ends up creating millions of more jobs. >> do you think obamacare is
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keeping from people hiring people? >> i think there are lot of new regulations. you end up making people more cautious in terms of hiring. >> chris: but this isn't how you get rich. it's about $100 million he donated to the public library. >> which is harder, making the money or giving it away? >> i think it's giving people a shot they deserve in the society we live in. not everybody gets a boost or a mentor. those of us who were fortunate needs to reach out to people and impact them. >> he says he as never to be in running when he as in school. that is the reason why he wanted to set up his own scholarship program. that is it for today.
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for all the moms that are watching have a great mother's day! we'll see you next fox news sunday. we'll have huckabee starting now. . tonight on huckabee. orders to stand down on a rescue mission. nthey were furious and proof that the talking points were changed. has the truth on benghazi comes to light, the governor asked. >> what difference does it make? it matters to the friends and family? mast master -- shawn smith's mother on why she blames the former